


We Belong With Each Other

by Sophie



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M, Self-cest, Unreliable Narrator, because of weird cross-universe lion mindlink things, universe jumping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 21:16:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8417002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophie/pseuds/Sophie
Summary: Sendak is really pleased to bring the Black Lion as a gift to his Emperor - except it's the Black Lion from a parallel universe, and it contains an unconscious Paladin that really looks like Zarkon's Knight.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Myoneloveismusic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myoneloveismusic/gifts).



> Hi Myoneloveismusic!
> 
> Here's some Shiro/Shiro with maybe a little bit too much plot for the amount of self-cest sex >> I hope you like it; I certainly appreciated the chance to write weird alternate universe fuck ups. Many things unexplained because of Dark!Shiro kind of incomplete point of view in this one.

Sendak is sure that he’s hallucinating when he sees the Lion floating aimlessly straight ahead of his ship. The Garlan Empire has dozens of troops, hundreds of soldiers whose sole purpose is to find any of the missing Lions – troops equipped with technology much beyond what Sendak has on his own ship to help them in their quest.

Sendak’s mission right now isn’t even to look for parts of Voltron – he was on his way to a small nearly inhabited planet to start a foraging expedition – but the Black Lion is _right there_ and he knows his priorities. 

“Sir?” his second-in-command asks him, uncertain. He’s seen the Lion, too. Everyone has.

“Arm the cannons and get ready. We don’t know if it’s active. It might even have a Paladin on board.”

Everyone moves around him instantly and he sits down, never taking his eyes off the Lion. It doesn’t _look_ active, but he’s not letting anything stop him from bringing it back to the Emperor. The rumour is that the Black Lion used to be linked to the Emperor himself, before the Altean war. He could go up in rank if he brings it back, he knows it.

He’s not letting anyone screw this up for him.

It’s easy to move the Lion on board as it remains completely till. His scientists try to pry it open but the Lion doesn’t answer to anything they do. They look disappointed but Sendak isn’t surprised – it’s well-known that the Voltron Lions only listen to their Paladins. 

He contacts the capital to make sure that this is where the Emperor is and orders his crew to head over there.

*

Shiro is awakened by someone touching him lightly on the shoulder. He doesn’t need much to be startled out of sleeping these days, and the servants in the Garlan capital all know this. Most importantly, they know the danger of waking him up too forcefully. Shiro only had to attack one of them for the word to go around.

“What?” He asks sharply. He doesn’t fight in the arena much these days, not since he’s been noticed by Zarkon and moved up the ranks quicker than any non-Garlan before, but when he does it’s an event: televised and important. When he has a fight planned, he doesn’t get awakened in the middle of the night less than twenty-four hours beforehand because he fights as the Emperor’s Knight and he has to be his best.

“I’m so sorry, Sir. I beg your forgiveness. The Emperor asks for your presence.”

Shiro groans and pushes the covers off him. At least, it’s the one acceptable reason to wake him up in this situation.

“ _Fine_. Go away.”

“In – Sir, my deepest apologies, but he said to meet him in the landing docks.”

Shiro stares at the servant until he bows deeply and stalks backwards out. The landing docks are a…. weird place for Zarkon to request his presence, but it’s not his place to question it. No servant is stupid enough to lie to him about something like that.

Shiro doesn’t bother showering, only quickly washing his face, before getting dressed and leaving his quarters, striding down corridors and, as usual, taking note of who shows him the respect he’s due and who doesn’t.

When he arrives at the landing docks, the Emperor is already there, smiling. _Grinning_ , nearly shaking with excitement.

“My Knight!” He exclaims, his tone weirdly emotional.

“Your Majesty,” Shiro answers, bowing low. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything is much more than okay. I wanted you to be there for this. To see my triumph. Sendak is nearly here, bringing me the Black Lion.”

Shiro presses his lips together, feeling like he’s been cheated. _He_ would have found the Black Lion for his Emperor if he had been given the chance. And now it’s too late and the honor goes to _Sendak_ , of all people.

“It is a great day for His Majesty,” he agrees simply.

Zarkon looks like he’s going to answer until his head snaps towards the hangar door. “He’s _here_ ,” he breathes out. “My Lion, I can feel him. He’s coming back to me.”

There were stories, of course, about how Zarkon used to be a Voltron Paladin – Shiro always thought they were just that: stories. Seeing his Emperor’s eyes glow with need and envy, he understands that they were all true. 

It’s entertaining, at least, to see the Emperor completely ignore Sendak’s posturing to go directly for the Lion. The Lion seems to purr under Zarkon’s gaze and it moves under Zarkon’s fingers… but doesn’t open. Everyone is completely silent, holding their breath, and Shiro sees the Emperor’s look shift quickly to annoyance, and then to anger.

 _Open for your Emperor!_ Shiro thinks at the beast, furious that this piece of metal would treat Zarkon this way.

He feels a pull in his head, and he squints, unsure. _Open!_ he orders mentally again – and here’s the pull once more, harder, nearly forcing him to take the few steps forward to close the distance between him and the Lion.

He raises his hand and touches the beast’s jaw, entranced. “Open,” he says out loud the next time, and the Lion listens. 

He pulls his hand away as if it’d been burned, panting and feeling the rising panic in his chest. “I don’t – I’m not your Paladin!” he yells at the Lion. “Why are you doing this?”

As if timed to answer his question, the Lion exposes his fainted Paladin still sitting at his controls as it opens his mouth. Shiro’s jaw drops open and his heart skips a few beats.

“It would seem,” Zarkon says slowly, putting his hand on Shiro’s shoulder, “that you _are_ this Lion’s Paladin after all.” The only thing keeping Shiro together is that Zarkon sounds approving.

*

“There was a disturbance, not far from where Commander Sendak found the Lion,” one of the scientist is explaining the Emperor. “Our best guess is that this is Your Majesty’s Knight from… some other universe.”

“And the Lion?” Zarkon asks.

“From the same universe, most probably. A universe where Your Majesty maybe truly isn’t the Black Lion’s Paladin. Many things would be different. It would explain why the Lion didn’t answer to Your Majesty’s command!” She adds quickly. “The _real_ Black Lion, His Majesty’s Black Lion… it’s still somewhere else and we haven’t found it,” she concludes.

Zarkon doesn’t look pleased. “Can it form Voltron with our universe’s Lions?”

The scientist’s eyes drop and she talks in a low voice when she admits, “We wouldn’t know without trying. It’s impossible to say right now.”

“What about the Paladin?”

The scientist looks up again, eyes wide. “He’s recovering next door – universe travel is very hard, very hard… he’s lucky to be alive at all. We thought you’d want him treated well?”

Shiro doesn’t know what he wants. They don’t know how different this other universe is. They don’t know how different this double is from him. He shrugs.

“Oh…” The scientist mutters, uncertain. “What do you want us to do with him, then?” She’s looking at Shiro, but Shiro immediately turns to his Emperor, not feeling like it’s really his decision to make.

Zarkon grins wickedly at him. “Did this… other you pique your interest?”

Shiro can stop the smile threatening on his lips, but he’s sure it still shows in his eyes. “How could he not?”

“You can keep him,” Zarkon says, nonchalant. “He’s yours if you want him.”

“Your Majesty?”

“Do as you please.” He looks at the Lion once more. “Of course, I expect reports.”

Shiro nods and licks his lips. “Thank you,” he breathes out, feeling his skin prickle.

*

He spends a lot of time – probably too much time – looking at the other lying unconscious in the recovery room. He comes every day, learning his double’s body, cataloging the muscles, the marks, the scars.

The double was also a Garlan Champion, Shiro thinks, because he has a prosthetic arm like him. But somewhere along the way, something changed because he doesn’t have a cyborg eye and the nasty scar going from his forehead to his cheek that goes with it; instead, he has a horizontal one across the bridge of his nose that Shiro does not share. He doesn’t have much of the same scars as Shiro, really, and Shiro tries to find the similarities to pinpoint where their timelines diverge. Right after he became Zarkon’s Knight, maybe.

Four sleeping cycles later, the other is still lying unconscious.

“I am not going to keep coming here until the solstice has passed!” he yells angrily at the doctor on duty. “Is he ever going to wake up?”

“We don’t know…” he answers, voice trembling. “There’s nothing wrong with him physically. We don’t know why he hasn’t awakened already.”

“If everything’s fine with him, can’t you force him awake?”

The doctor boggles. “We… I mean, yes, we could, but there’s always some danger. We could overload the nervous system, or… Will all due respect, we don’t know enough about your race’s physiology for this to be safe.”

“Do it.”

“Sir?...”

“Do it,” he repeats.

*

When the other wakes up, he’s clearly dizzy and lost and scared. “Oh God,” he whines, low and stretched.

Shiro stands next to him, close enough to touch, but doesn’t reach.

“What do you remember?” he asks.

The other’s eyes shift on him, his pupils dilating. “What?...” The other’s breath catches, and he seems unable to stop staring at Shiro just like Shiro can’t stop staring at him. Couldn’t stop staring at him for days, now.

“Leave,” he orders the doctor and the nurse. They scamper at high speed and Shiro’s alone with another version of himself. “What do you remember?” he repeats.

“Is... this real? Who are you?”

Shiro smiles, humourless. “I’m Shiro. Takashi Shirogane. The Emperor’s Knight. You came to us from another universe.”

The other remains silent at this, and Shiro isn’t sure if he understood what he just said.

“You came with a Voltron Lion. Are you a Paladin in your universe?” Shiro presses on. But it’s somehow getting harder to concentrate on talking. Like talking might be superfluous between them. He may have always reacted a bit weirdly around the other, and the small feeling nagging him while his double was unconscious… well, it’s not a _small_ feeling anymore.

“Yes. I’m. The other Paladins. What about the others?”

Shiro shakes his head. “We only found you.” _We only found each other_ is right there in his mind, absurd.

“I don’t –” the other starts saying, propping himself on an elbow, but stops when Shiro reaches for him and touches his jaw.

The feeling is electrifying, like they were always meant to touch. “Shhhh,” Shiro coos. “It’s okay.”

He caresses the other's cheek, slides his thumb on his lips, and the other’s eyes flicker shut as he pushes into his hand. They _are_ meant to touch, Shiro realises. They are meant to be much closer than they are right now.

He cups the back of the double’s head and kisses him. The other moans instantly and opens under him, inviting, knowing, because they fit together. They’re the same, linked, perfectly compatible.

“It’s okay,” Shiro repeats into the kiss, completely needless. They both know how okay it is, they can feel it.

Breaking the kiss for just an instant, Shiro climbs onto the hospital bed and straddles the other, so that the next time they kiss he can press their chests together, their hips together. He should have known it wouldn’t be enough, though, that they’d need skin to skin contact. Both his body and his mind know what he needs to do, and the other knows, too, because he reaches between them to pull on Shiro’s shirt, seeking his bare skin.

“Come on, come on, come on,” the other murmurs against his lips like a prayer. “I need – _we_ need –”

They really do.

Shiro stands straighter on his knees to remove his shirt, throwing it on the floor, and it’s very easy to rid the other of the light hospital gown he was wearing, not even tied properly.

He nearly crashes down on the other, pressing their chests together and exhaling loudly, shakily, like just that is the best contact he’s ever had. From the way the other immediately grabs him by the shoulders and clings to him hard, pulling him down as if to fuse them together, Shiro thinks the feeling is mutual.

“You’re amazing,” Shiro tells him. In the back of his mind, he knows that they’re not really _doing_ anything, but there’s something. There’s _something_ , and Shiro really appreciates that alternate selves apparently have this effect on each other.

Under him, the other presses their lips together again messily, licking inside his mouth, and when Shiro traces a hand over the double’s nipple, the double’s hips press up immediately, grinding against Shiro’s. They’re both so obviously hard, and Shiro finds a second to be pissed that he’s still wearing his pants. But the other is writhing under him from Shiro’s hand on his nipples and that’s more important.

“Yeah, you like that,” Shiro says, sure of himself, thumbing over the nipple again and again. He pinches the other’s nipple, then, harsh. The double yells and makes no move to stop Shiro – of course he doesn’t. 

“I know you.” Shiro purrs. He moves aside just enough to free the other’s dick so he can wrap his hand around it. He never stops working on the other’s nipples, soft caresses and hard pulls, drawing out needy, shaky cries. “I _know_ you,” he repeats, sterner, and he starts pumping the other’s dick.

There’s no technique to it, just like there’s been no technique to nothing between them. They both need it so much, lost into each other’s bodies. Untouched, dressed, Shiro feels his orgasm building from rocking against his double’s side as he jerks him off. From the other’s shouts and whimpers. From the other getting closer to his _own_ orgasm.

He doesn’t come in his pants, in the end, but when his double comes he still feels satiated and incredible. Unreal.

The other immediately grabs onto him and forces them to lie against each other – although it’s what Shiro was going to do anyway so there’s really no forcing.

“It’s okay,” Shiro says in the other's hair, not knowing what else he could possibly do or say.

“What –”

“You’re safe. You’ll stay here. It’s gonna be okay,” he promises. “The Emperor said you were mine.”

“Who?”

“The Emperor Zarkon,” he answers slowly, unsure if this is what the double was really asking. Surely, he knows of Emperor Zarkon after all.

The other's breath hitches, and he starts trembling inexplicably.

Shiro holds him closer.


End file.
